With the advent and introduction of the graphical user interface (GUI), today's computers are driven much more by a cursor control device than ever before. Accordingly, a wide variety of techniques for positioning a cursor on a computer display are available and well known in the computer industry.
A conventional cursor control device is a keyboard. A user can press a variety of keys on the keyboard to control movement of the cursor. However, this cursor movement manner becomes inconvenient when sizes of the keyboards get smaller.
Another conventional cursor control device is a mouse. The user can move the mouse in a direction of the desired cursor movement. Nevertheless, the mouse generally suffers from one or more deficiencies. For example, the mouse requires the user to move his or her hand across large areas to operate efficiently and to permit the movement of the cursor throughout the display area. However, the user's workspace is often limited, as a result, the user must repeatedly lift the mouse. Furthermore, these repetitive operations may also lead to physical fatigue and repetitive stress injuries to the user.
What is needed, therefore, is an electronic device and method for controlling a cursor that can provide a friendly and convenient user interface allowing the user to easily and effectively control movement of the cursor.